Episode 147 - In For a Penny, In For a Pound

Turns out that when you build an artificial state via conquest and exploitation that it doesn't lend itself to stability. The establishment of Manchukuo in early 1932 didn't clear out the hundreds of thousands of unemployed soldiers, partisans, and bandits roaming the countryside. It would take years of campaigning to instill even a sense of control, and the Chinese collaborators would at best make for unreliable allies. And to top it all off, officers in the Kwantung Army decided that more expansion would lead to stability. 

 

Bibliography for this episode: 

 

1. McClain, James L A Modern History of Japan WW Norton & Company Inc, 2002
2. Duus, Peter The Cambridge History of Japan, Volume 6: The Twentieth Century Cambridge University Press 1988
3. Young, Louise Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism University of California Press 1998
4. Jowett, Philip S. Rays of the Rising Sun: Armed Forces of Japan's Asian Allies 1931-45 Helion & Company Limited 2004
5. Duara, Prasenjit Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukup and the East Asian Modern Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc 2003
6. Matsusaka, Yoshihisa Tak The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-32 Harvard University Asia Center 2001
7. Mitter, Rana The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern China University of California Press 2000
8. Paine, S.C.M. The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War Cambridge University Press 2017
9. Paine, S.C.M. The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949 Cambridge University Press 2012 

 

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